My professional career has focused on how companies and their people can operate in both a principled and profitable way. I am the author of HOW: Why HOW We Do Anything Means Everything published by Wiley & Sons in an Expanded Edition in September 2011 with a Foreword by President Bill Clinton and a new preface. I am the founder and CEO of LRN. Since 1994, LRN has helped hundreds of companies simultaneously navigate complex legal and regulatory environments and foster ethical cultures. I am a Harvard Law School graduate who also earned a bachelor’s and master’s degree in moral philosophy from UCLA and a BA with honors in philosophy, politics, and economics from Oxford University. To learn more about my company, visit www.lrn.com. To learn more about the HOW philosophy, visit www.howsmatter.com.

(Almost) Everything We Think About Employee Engagement is Wrong

For years, the business world’s approach to managing employee engagement has been out to lunch.

“Out to lunch” as when executives tell managers to get their employees “more engaged” by taking them out to Olive Garden more often.

Survey statistics drive home our engagement ignorance. For years, employee engagement scores have declined despite the millions of dollars companies invest to boost sagging workforce morale. Engagement experts and practitioners continue to make commendable and reasoned efforts to encourage companies to better focus on and improve their engagement. Many of these professionals have been quite thoughtful in their approaches. That being said, shouldn’t we see scores improving? Unfortunately, a recent Towers Watson survey indicated that nearly two–thirds of U.S. employees are not fully engaged in their work and are less productive as a result. In response to survey results like this, executives exhort managers to spend even more time with their employees.

What if the lunch is disingenuous, boring, cheesy or even nasty? What if the additional time employees spend with their managers is tortuous and mundane rather than constructive, collaborative and inspirational? We know all too well what happens: employee engagement keeps plummeting, as it has for years. Once again, we’ve been applying a “how much” solution to a “HOW” problem.

The frequency of lunches, performance reviews, volunteer program outings and team-building exercises does not produce higher levels of employee engagement. Employee engagement is determined by the quality and meaningfulness of these interactions, and the journey managers are enlisting their employees to engage in. Thanks to a much deeper statistical analysis of more than 2 million workplace observations from employees around the world we now know:

A) The specific organizational qualities that must be present in high amounts and must truly animate leadership, decision-making and behavior throughout the company to create “super-engaged” employees; and

B) When employees are super-engaged, they exhibit many more specific “engagement traits” – including a willingness to put in a great deal of extra effort, increased loyalty, a greater willingness to recommend their company as an employer of choice, efforts to inspire others in the company through concrete comments and actions, and similar outcomes – compared to other employees.

This is a Eureka moment for employee engagement: we’ve cracked the code on what truly inspires employees. The source of engagement has nothing to do with breaking bread (or bread sticks) and everything to do with the extent to which trust, values and mission actually inspire and drive daily activities and interactions.

These determinants represent much deeper and more complex levers to pull, yet they’re also quantifiable and statistically valid. My company LRN conducted an independent statistical analysis of how things actually work at companies, small and large, derived from a lengthy and rigorous empirical study of observations from 36,000 employees in 18 countries conducted by the Boston Research Group, The Center for Effective Organizations at University of Southern California and Research Data Technology, Inc. When these observations were subjected to multivariate analyses – basically, the simultaneous observation and analysis of many, many outcome variables – the same result appeared every time. When trust, values and a purpose-driven mission exist to a statistically significant degree and guide leadership, decision-making and behavior, these “enablers” give rise to a highly inspired group of super-engaged employees.

The analysis also tells us that when trust, values and a purpose-inspired mission do not drive behavior in a company, far fewer of these engagement traits exist. Even worse, extremely low levels of these engagement sources produce a “disconnected” group of employees who work against or even sabotage company objectives.

Every organization has some supply of trust, values and mission; however, the research shows that the companies with super-engaged employees treat these core enablers as a reactor. When this reactor “heats up,” it produces truly inspired employees who want to build cathedrals rather than merely lay bricks.

Our existing approach to employee engagement only produces brick-layers: people who perform tasks for money; people who may briefly become more productive in these tasks via one-off awards, bonuses and other motivations (whose positive effects fade as quickly as sugar highs); and people who feel stuck in unsatisfying, dead-end jobs when they truly desire careers.

In fact, we have what I would call a full-blown, yet rarely talked about, “careers crisis” on our hands. Because so many workers remain dissatisfied, unproductive and – far worse – disconnected in uninspiring, task-based jobs, they are not driving the innovation and well-informed risk-taking that stimulates growth and creates additional, and more meaningful, jobs that our country needs. It’s time to go on a journey from task-based jobs to values-based missions.

By misunderstanding, mismanaging and mis-measuring employee engagement, we are failing to provide a signal to our nation’s most valuable resource: young workers. These people do not know where to invest their energy, talent, skills, character and creativity. They are looking for careers, but we can barely provide them with jobs.

By understanding the true source of super-engaged workers, our companies and their leaders can have their business lunches and enjoy what they eat during these collaborative, inspirational and productive sessions, too.

Further, by deploying trust, values and a purpose-driven mission as the primary drivers for all business activities, interactions and decisions, companies can transform a workforce of bricklayers into a highly coordinated and inspired team of cathedral-builders whose inspired work generates both success and significance for our companies and the world.

Post Your Comment

Post Your Reply

Forbes writers have the ability to call out member comments they find particularly interesting. Called-out comments are highlighted across the Forbes network. You'll be notified if your comment is called out.

Comments

I found it extreme, “everything we know about engagement is wrong.” This seems extreme and a disservice to those working in engagement. There may be mistaken notions on engagement but I fully believe that so many in this field see engagement as so much more than a free lunch and many authors, consultancies, and companies have been focusing on trust, values, and mission in their work. Do you believe the work of the UK Task force on employee engagement and their work on engagement is all wrong? This is implied when you say “everything we know” is wrong. Is Teresa Amabile mistaken with her research on progress and is Gallup wrong with their work on strengths?

I find it hard to believe there is one “true source” as you suggest while I would not diminish the power of trust, values, and mission that you hint at. It would have been enlightening to have more facts and specifics to support your contention rather than two links to the lrn website. How are you defining engagement? What specific values make the difference? Does it matter how trust is build, values are lived, and mission is created?

You have such a fine education from law to philosophy so it was disconcerting to read the way this post was written.

I hypothesize that trust, values, and mission are important so I do wish you all the best in all your work.

As an executive/manager who has actually created more than one fully engaged workforce, I agree that values, trust and purpose are important.

But knowing that or knowing that management’s integrity is important don’t provide me with what exactly management must do to achieve engagement: a highly motivated, highly committed workforce with very high morale and innovation literally loving to come to work and at least 300% more productive than if poorly engaged. Stephen Covey wrote that the possible performance gain is 500% and my experiences lead me to agree with Covey.

So how does management do it. Simple! By doing their own job very very well!

Management is responsible for supporting work by providing training, tools, parts, material, information, direction, discipline, planning and the like to employees. How well management achieves employee engagement is dictated by the quality of this support with poor support causing disengagement and very high quality support causing very high levels of engagement. So all management has to do is make that support be of the very highest quality.

The only way management can achieve high quality support is to listen to the users of that support, employees. Listen to their complaints, suggestions, and questions just as you do to customers of your products and services to make them more acceptable and pleasing to customers. Listen face to face and respond face to face to the satisfaction of employees, the customers of your support.

If you don’t want to listen to them or insist on giving them orders about doing their work or don’t share every bit of information you have that they want, you will convince them that you don’t respect them and they will become disengaged. Would you treat an external customer that way? If you insist on using the traditional top-down command and control approach to managing people you will fail miserably at creating a fully engaged workforce.

But meet your responsibilities to the very highest standards and your people will be so thankful for being treated so well, far better than they had ever expected or hoped, that they will eagerly unleash everything they have on their work: all their creativity, innovation, productivity, enthusiasm, knowledge, experience, skills, etcetera.

Your approach has management as a paternalistic entity with all the power to do good. Good managers use their power wisely; bad managers misuse theirs. But the underlying theme is employees are powerless . They have to wait around for good managers to turn up before they can become engaged. I’m sure you didn’t mean it but when I read this, ‘But meet your responsibilities to the very highest standards and your people will be so thankful for being treated so well,’ and I thought it would have been good advice for a landlord in the Middle Ages. Substitute ‘people’ with ‘serfs’ and not lose any meaning. :))

Not paternalistic but as a servant and thus quite the opposite. My people knew that they were in charge of their own destiny at work, not me. I was only there to help them do what they wanted to do.

Part of the script is to convert conformists/followers who waste a huge amount of brainpower on following back into their at birth state of being non-followers who apply 100% of their brainpower on whatever it is they do. There are many more little details such as how to listen and respond, but I have provided the essence and it is the opposite of top-down.

I experienced exactly the same when I was an executive. Becoming engaged in my staff’s work not only educated me, it showed them that I truly cared for what they were doing. I didn’t need to dangle carrots in front of them. Our intrinsic motivation built and sustained a very successful organization.

I also threw away the annual “performance reviews.” They’re humiliating, superficial, and useless. Instead, I asked each staff member to fill out their own review and we spent time going over what they and I believed were areas in which they wanted help. And then I helped them.

Great article and very true – especially with millennials. Most people will have 4 or 5 jobs in their career and they are ready to jump ship if the company they work for does not inspire them. Most organizations treat their people like brick layers which does lead to dis-satisfied, disconnected, disappointed team members that just go through the motions.

I challenge everyone to really look at their office and ask if they could do better. Trust needs to be earned and you earn trust based on your actions, investment in your people and with enhanced communication sharing your values and recognizing the great things people do to help support the corporate values, vision and goals. People want to be empowered, inspired and know their contribution matter. If you give them those things they will be engaged. We developed a system for ourselves to do that for our team called Kudos. Turned out lots of other companies we were working with liked the idea and product and asked if they could use it. So we commercialized Kudos to help all companies create engagement. Check it out at www.KudosNow.com. Might be something can help your company too.

The comments of Mr. Zinger and Mr. Simonton are spot on. A number of organizations are doing many things right with respect to leadership that drives success via values, purpose and connection. Many more than reasonable, of course, do not do things this way and, hence, the continuing interest in employee engagement.

My take, however, questions where employees’ responsibilities come into play. Yes, organizations can (and often do) disengage workers, but let’s at least try to make this discussion one where both sides matter and so are part of the solution. [Perhaps part of the reason we're in the fix we're currently in is because organizations have for so long looked at "people" as "commodities" and have chosen to ignore the human aspect, as in 'all parties matter.' And, as a result, employees often act like commodities.] Be that as it may, where would you suggest workers begin to take responsibility for their commitment and connection to the work? A focus on their own career ownership is a good place to start.

Employees very seldom “own” their careers. Most will say they do, but the actions aren’t there to support the claim. Employees go to work, clock their time, do often the minimum expected and wait to be told if and when they need to strengthen their value through training, etc. On the other hand, when workers take a partnership approach to their work, when they align their talents and contributions with the strategic direction of the business, their commitment grows and–not surprisingly–so do their career options and opportunities. They readily become “super-engaged” as you say.

Not every organization can handle this type of initiative, and so the current employer may not provide career opportunities…but that’s a tremendous opportunity to find an organization that does. When a worker knows the value he/she provides and is wise enough to continue to grow that value (by really owning career development), then career opportunities are only limited by willingness to find the best match, i.e. to create a partnership.

When both sides are involved in the partnership and it’s based on “we both matter”, “we’re all human,” and a recognition that “I” only win when “you” win, then our organizations will get the success they desire in a globally competitive world and people will get the recognition and satisfaction that engagement programs cannot provide…even if done well.

Okay, let’s make this simple… Lots of companies really don’t give a rip about employees as human beings, show zero loyalty to them, and have a mission that revolves squarely around making money for people at the top.

Really, is it that surprising to managers that when a company only seeks to use employees as biological robots, that those employees respond by only using the company to get a paycheck? This extractive mindset (present in many corporate cultures today) kills people’s excitement. Here are a few starting points for increasing motivation:

1) Stop the layoffs. As much as the threat of layoffs might motivate people short-term, it’s emotionally draining over the long-term. Remember those emotions that you want to trigger, that will give your employees superhuman achieving power? If you suck that emotion dry with constant threats, abusive managers, disregard for their personal lives, and overwork… shocker — it won’t be there to give you the investment and productivity that you’re seeking. This is basic psychology — people who are under constant threat of economic/career survival become less creative, less willing to take entrepreneurial risks, and generally fatigued. Are you honestly surprised at their lack of buy-in?

2) Hire people to fill empty spots, instead of forcing your existing people to keep increasing their workload for the same pay. People only respond to threats for so long. Corporate profits and productivity are at all-time highs. Do you think your employees don’t watch the news? When people feel like they work hard and other people (corporate execs and shareholders) are rewarded for their hard work, they don’t see the point in working hard. Pretty simple. I don’t care how many lunches you take me out to. Stop punishing me for being a good worker by increasing my workload.

3) Realize that people are human. People are driven much more by emotion and purpose than by money and threats. Do they teach this in MBA programs? To all the managers out there, people know when you’re lying. They also know when you’re full of crap, even with all the MBA lingo that you use. (Many see you “opening the kimono” to reveal your incompetence. Stop leveraging things. Really.) You’re not fooling anybody. They keep track of when you’re a jerk and when you go back on your promises. If you value your ego above treating your people well, they’ll find every opportunity they can to subtly sabotage you. That’s just how people are. It doesn’t take people very long to put the pieces together and realize when you or your company don’t care at all about them as human beings.

Stop it with the programs. Stop it with the “maybe if we get people to watch this video, they’ll magically work 50% harder” gimmicks.

Treat your employees with basic human respect, reward them for their successes, stand up for them, set high expectations that are about goals like quality and making the world a better place, and actively work to make their lives and the whole world better — and except for the truly lazy and unhelpful folks, most of them will return the favor by working hard for you.

David: Thank you for taking the time to read my post and to comment. My sincere intent is to draw attention to what I believe is a grave crisis in business today: (the lack of) employee engagement. Your comment has inspired me to add to my post in order to clarify my message, and to include a new, and I believe, more accurate title. I genuinely appreciate you sharing your reactions and seeking greater truth. I embrace and value anyone working to improve engagement and address the estimated $300 billion lost in productivity caused by unengaged employees, as found from Gallup research. But despite the research, practices and efforts by respected experts and professionals around employee engagement, we continue to see decreased engagement scores, across the board. Currently, 7 out of 10 employees are disengaged in their jobs. This is unacceptable and leads to a question: Despite our best efforts, why are things not changing? We are not addressing the root cause of employee disengagement, and thereby are missing the core opportunity to reenergize and improve engagement.

This opportunity must be seized through companywide efforts to increase trust, values and purpose. Trust is foundational for any company that seeks to improve engagement, which I define as an energized, productive, loyal and innovative workforce. Without trust, employees may not share their strengths, ideas and ‘best selves’ at work. HOW you build trust must be emphasized. You cannot command trust – trust can only be inspired by giving it away. Values must be embedded in the processes and daily life of a company, not only on a piece of paper. I do not mean to be prescriptive or extreme, but I know that it will take rethinking and reframing to solve this crisis.

Dov: I appreciate your response and find my back lowering instead of getting up. I believe to be successful we will need to create mutual purpose with employees and organizations and that can also be a good foundation for trust. Thanks for the clarification. David